19. Albion W. Tourgée, “Shall White Minorities Rule?” Forum (April 1889): 143-55.


Criticism of the South’s attempts to restrict black suffrage by claiming that casting a ballot is a privilege, not a right. The author argues that the right to vote for African Americans is their most effective weapon against the abuse of power by white Southerners. “As a matter of policy, it resolves itself into an inquiry as to what the American people can afford to do or leave undone—whether we can afford even negatively to admit that white minorities have the right not only to rule, but to nullify and subvert the law of the land, boldly, defiantly, and persistently, in order to bar a lawful majority from the exercises of political power, merely because the minority demand it.”